From the Channel 4 television series by Niall Ferguson (one of this seminar’s “new imperialists”), which accompanies his book by the same title. This part deals with the history of Africa in the British empire, the reign of Queen Victoria, and the development of new ideologies of rugged imperial expansionism, including new racial theories, scientific racism, eugenics, and racialized ideologies of “national fitness” that legitimated Britain’s conquests, the self-view of the heights achieved by the “British race,” and the increased number of “small wars” fought by Britain abroad. World domination became a racial right. Especially interesting are the British battles in Sudan (Gordon of Khartoum), and the war against the Boers in South Africa (1899-1902), and the shocking butchery practiced by the British there (including concentration camps) and scorched-earth campaigns. Imperial overkill, imperial overreach, and imperial hubris were followed by anti-imperial backlash back home and fierce challenges from contending empires.
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